Memetics: the Science of Fanon
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| Title: | Memetics: the Science of Fanon |
| Creator: | Laura Jacquez Valentine |
| Date(s): | January 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Wayback; WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Memetics: the Science of Fanon is an essay by Laura Jacquez Valentine.
Summary: "The creation and use of fanon, memetics as a useful discipline...."
Originally posted to CriticalEdge. Multiple posts edited together and slightly edited for clarity. It is at listen to me! listen to me! essays.
Excerpts
We have "fanon", which tells us why our readers are likely to believe. This delves into the realm of rhetoric; fanon is the set of memes that make up the fan culture of The Sentinel. (Fanon is memetic but not enthymemetic: the audience does not need to be persuaded to apply the ideas they already hold to the case at hand; they will do so without any persuasion. True enthymemetic structures require argument. More on this later.) When writing, the writer must be aware of this culture and of its rules. ---[Memetics tells us why we stand on the shoulders of giants. It's true that these giants may or may not want to be stood upon.] The issue is partly that you don't necessarily know on whose shoulders you are standing.
F'rinstance, I've run into a lot of TPM fans who call Palpatine "Bob". Most of them have either *no* idea or an incorrect idea about where that started (it is not Sith Academy, as many people believe; it was a one-liner smartass answer I made that a lot of people started using in discussion *before* it ended up in any fiction anywhere).
The *only* reason that is traceable is because you can look at the list archive for Master & Apprentice and find my original answer. (If you are a member of M-A, it's here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/master_apprentice/message/4608) But a lot of ideas come out of IRC chats or unarchived email or are something someone saw in a story that they can't remember. There's a Highlander slash story I remember only by one line; it's not alone.
I've argued before in numerous forums that I believe that fiction is a form of argument, and therefore a rhetorical art, which requires credibility of the author in order to function. One of the ways that authors *get* credibility in the first place is by showing their knowledge of the culture within which they are writing. Fanon is a part of that knowledge; fanon expressed in fiction allows readers to place an author rhetorically. (I admit that a lot of times fanon allows me to place the author in the trash bin. I am singularly unfond of fanon; I hate it and I hate even more when I accidentally generate it. As an example of memetics in action, however, it is surpassed only by urban legends.)